I have reached a turning point that I have seen coming for quite some time, and now I have an important decision to make. It is spring time now, the weather outside is fantastic, and of course this means more outside food grilling.

Technically, the weather doesn't mean shit to me because I grill year round. I grill an average of 3 or 4 times a week. The downside of this is that my grill gets abused like a red headed step child. The weather comes into play because now it is nice enough outside to clean up the grill, and figure out how to proceed.

I bought the grill in 2003 when I moved into my new house, so the grill is 5 years old in real world time. I am not sure how often the average person prepares their food outside on a grill, so lets assume it is twice a month. This would be once every other weekend, which seems reasonable. I'll go on the low side for my frequency and say 3 times a week. So the average griller is grilling about 26 times a year, and I am averaging 156 times a year, so about 6 times as much as the average Joe. So the way I see it, in grill years, my grill is about 30 years old.
Here are some pictures of the grill's eroding parts.

You can clearly see the erosion that has taken place over the years.
So this first one isn't too bad, a little elbow grease could fix that right up. Let's slide the cooking grate over a little and see what is below it. The picture isn't a closeup or you would also see some of the cooking grate enamel flaking off the griddle side and the grate.


Zoinks! My "flame tamer" drop vaporizers are shot. There are three of these in the grill, replacements are 15$ each! All 3 of them are in this kind of shape.


Here is my sad excuse for a burner! The brass replacement burners are about 50 bucks each! I am not 100% sure that brass will last any longer then these enamel coated cast irons ones, due to poor design of the system, so long as stuff drips onto the burners directly, they will erode.

So seemingly I will have to have new burners, and a new burner support bracket, which holds the burners in place at the back, mine is virtually gone. You can sort of see the remains of it in picture 2. Also, as you can see, I will need new gas collectors/electrodes which are used for ignition. There is supposed to be a small metal "box" at the end of the igniter to collect a small amount of gas to light the burner itself. As you can see, mine are long gone. New vaporizers. A new bottom pan, and a drip collection pan. I pushed on the bottom pan of the grill, and it began to fold in half. I didn't think I would be able to use the grill at all without it, so I left it in tact. The "bucket" thing that holds the drippings after they run off the bottom pan has been gone for 2 years, due to rusting, disintegrating, and blowing away with the wind. it was just sort of... gone one day.

In the past I have had to buy new burners for my grill, but that's about it. But now, I have other parts that would also need to be purchased to keep the grill in working order. Upon researching said parts, I noticed that they no longer make several parts that I need, meaning I have to look elsewhere for the parts. This drives the cost up. It appears that to buy all the parts I need to get my grill up to par would be in the neighborhood of 350+ dollars. This also does not guarantee that I can fix the broken parts. A cursory check of the bolts and screws necessary to replace some of these parts revealed years of wear and tear, an I am not sure that I would be able to get said nuts and bolts out, and if I was able to, the holes left behind may prevent the new parts from installing correctly. So, the question becomes do I buy the parts, or do I buy an entirely new grill.

The grill is a Char-Broil Commercial Series. It cost 500 dollars. It had a "99 year warranty". The first time I called to ask about burners and other parts, I am not exactly sure what happened because it has been so long, but I know that I paid for the parts, so I guess they were not covered by the warranty, which means they certainly won't be now either.

If I buy a new grill, I will switch brands and go with a Weber, which seems to be the most popular brand, and they have a fantastic reputation for being one of the best grills available. Also, from what I gather, their warranty and customer service are top notch. The Weber Genesis E-320 costs 700 dollars. From time to time, they are on sale at Newegg of all places, for around 600. Is it worth spending up to another 250-350 dollars over what my parts would cost to have a whole new grill? I am not sure.

If I buy 350 dollars worth of parts, and my current grill does not perform any better or if I cannot get the new parts installed, then certainly not, but I can never know until I try. Additionally, there are other parts of my grill that are eroding, and would have to be replaced at some point, which would drive repair costs up even more. Another factor I am considering is the fact that Weber grills share a lot of universal parts, which can be easily obtained from local home improvement stores, and Char-Broil grills seem to not.

Probably the most looming part of this adventure is my project of eliminating debt. Buying a 700 dollar grill does not help me achieve that goal. I weighed the advantages and disadvantages of buying a really crappy grill for 100 dollars and then just replacing it every year or two. I think this is a bad plan. I think it would be pretty hard to find a gas grill for 100 bucks, not to mention the pain in the ass of having to procure one every 12 months. So far, my 500 dollar grill has lasted 5 years, so it has come out the same so far. If I can get 7 years out of a 700 dollar grill, I guess it would be a wash as well.

I guess overall I think of it like this. If you have to spend 70% of the purchase price to repair something, maybe it would be best to just get a new one. Also, I firmly believe that if you use something more than 150 times a year for 5 years straight, and don't see that habit changing any time soon, then it is OK to replace whatever it is immediately, because you apparently cannot get by without it. You would likely replace a washer or dryer or microwave or some other appliance under those conditions, and I count the grill as an appliance because it gets used 3 times as much as the washing machine!

I really do not want to have to buy a new grill, but it almost seems inevitable. After weighing out the advantages and disadvantages, I think its best if I get a new grill and be done with it. I can stick it into the same category as when I had to have my AC unit repaired. It sucked because it was so expensive, but I really need it, so I can justify buying it, then pay the money back into savings or credit card or whatever over a long period of time in small increments.

FUCK!

My experiment to see what would happen to me physically and mentally if converted to a "healthy" lifestyle of a proper diet and exercise for 30 days worked out quite well. What was intended to be an experiment for 30 days, turned into 60, 90, and so on. At the end of this week, it will be 147 days! I have lost 50.8 pounds. I have lost 4 inches from my waist. I am still eating 'right' and exercising normally. I can now run for hour straight without stopping. My endurance is at an all time high, and I am on top of my game in hockey.

While it is incredibly easy to maintain a healthy lifestyle, I still do not see me keeping it up forever, although I do not see the experiment stopping any time soon. It just seems rather unlikely that I would keep doing anything in particular for years on end.

Ok, so for my next stunt, I am going to attempt to reduce my debt. I have posted many times my thoughts on debt in general. For years, I just got the credit card bills in the mail, didn't even look at them, just paid whatever amount, and went on with my business. I have enough financial assets to cover the debt, so it was never a big deal, I could pay it all off by converting some assets to cash if I needed to for some reason, so good times. Slowly over time, the debt has somehow begun to piss me off. I seem to be obsessing about it daily. I am not exactly sure why this happened, but it has. I do not want to interfere with any existing investments to cover the debt, so my plan is to leave then all intact, and find other methodologies of debt reduction.
So, once I organized the debt, and shifted a few things around, I pay around 100$ a month in finance charges. This may sound like a lot, but considering before, I was paying 350-400$ a month in charges, 100$ is not all that bad.

Ok, so step 1 is out of the way. Essentially by rotating all debts one card to the left using balance transfers; I was able to get most of the debt to a 0% interest rate. Once the balance transfer rate expires, I just shuffle the deck again. The cards I have feature really low fees on transfers, and I only need to do it once a year.

Step 2 is save money by reducing my dependence on foreign oil. As I have posted before, I spend 350-400$ a month on gas. Well, screw the Arab nations, and screw the gas companies. I am now doing my daily commute on my motorcycle, where I get around 75 miles per gallon, instead of 15 in my truck. This comes out to about an 80% reduction in gas consumed. I will still have to use my truck for going to hockey, grocery shopping, and during inclement weather, but factoring in those events, I should still be able to save a MINIMUM of $150 a month in gas costs. That alone covers the finance charges each month and adds 50 extra dollars to the cause.

Step 3 is one that is necessary due to human nature. Each month, on the day before I get paid, I send every penny in my checking account to the credit card company. I find that if I keep any "extra" money in the checking account, I will probably spend it. I have lived for years in a "cashless society" as I call it. I do not use cash, and haven't for years. If there is money in your pocket, you are more likely to use it because it is there. So, when I get paid, I go down the list of bills I have to pay that month, credit card bills and otherwise, and pay them, and then I pay myself by moving money into savings, moving some to investments, etc... Then whatever is left over just sits there until the day before pay day, at which points, boom, an extra payment on the credit card.

Step 4 is to stop spending. I buy shit all the time. I enjoy buying stuff, but the more I get involved with getting rid of debt, the more it makes me sick to even think about buying stuff. So starting in a few days, I am going to either stop buying stuff, or at least pick and choose my purchases more wisely. If my choices are to buy event tickets, or something I will own for 10 years, I will go with option B.

Step 5 is to be more frugal around the house with grocery shopping, energy usage, water usage, etc... This one is more experimental than other steps. It would be interesting if using coupons, shutting off unused electronics, and things of that nature really do save much money. I have a theory that they don't, so we shall see.

Step 6 will kick in a few months from now, if I am not happy with my progress. I plan to reduce 401k contributions to 0% for 12 months. I already lowered it from 8% to 4% last year for the effort. Since the economy is really in the shitter, it makes sense to use the money now, to be in a better position in the future. Once the economy turns back around, the existing assets should be enough to gain an additional 5 or 6 grand in a year, even at modest returns.

So there is the plan in a nutshell. Steps 2 and 6 alone should be enough to pay in maybe 500 bucks more a month than I do now. I think it may be unrealistic and perhaps unhealthy to set goals in this scenario. I figure if I can pay between around $1000 a month towards debt, I should be able to knock it out pretty quick. I can't wait to see how it goes.

Let's face facts here, these are uncertain times. The stock market has gone to hell, bringing the economy with it, or vice versa. There is uncertainty in politics seemingly at all levels. We are in a war with no plans to end it any time soon. Being in that war means our once powerful and mighty military is now spread thin around the world, so to some extent we are unprotected.


So do you feel safe? I am not talking about 'hey its time to go to bed, so lock the door safe', I am talking about more of a 'what if all hell breaks lose' kind of safe. If you think about all the turmoil the country has right now, it can be a scary thing. I think people have gotten complacent [again]since 2001, and complacency breeds a state of being naive.


In these troubled times, I think it best to protect yourself. How can you do this? A few ways. 1. Make sure that you save money. I would wager that most people don't. 2. Try as hard as possible to have no debt. I would wager that most people can't 3. Make a few plans in case something goes wrong at a civil community level. I would wager that people won't. 4. Buy some guns!.


Number 4 in the list is perhaps the easiest of all, and very well could be the most important. A wise man once said "The gun you have is better than the gun you don't have." If all hell were to break loose, and someone made an attempt to invade your property for some reason, to take you out, or to take some of your fancy shit, it might be wise to have some firearms handy. What if all hell broke loose, and you had to fend for yourself for food. It might be wise to have a few guns on hand. I could go on and on, but you see my point. If you have no gun, you'll have no food, or if you have no gun, you'll have no shit. The examples are endless.


This being the case, I have launched a gun buying initiative. So far, I have purchased a Mossberg 500 Model 50579 8-shot pump shotgun. This is a great all around shotgun. It can be used for tactical defense, as well as hunting. I bought the weapon at a gun show and I got a great deal.


My next gem was a Beretta FS92 9mm semi-automatic handgun. I got a real steal on the gun since I had a $100 Cabelas gift card on hand. This gun is supreme. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up, it is so choice. On a whim, I decided to gain a better understanding of how the handgun operates, so I found a website on the world wide national intertubes that shows detailed videos with explanations of how to take the weapon completely apart. I did so. The gun has about 50 pieces, and I broke it down to about 46. The last 4 pieces were irrelevant, and Beretta recommends that no one takes them off, so I didn't. Here is what the gun looks like when it is broken down completely.




As you can see, the damn thing turns into a bunch of parts. Some were difficult to work with, some fell right out with no effort. I think it is important to do this at least once, in case you ever are forced to do it under more stressful conditions.

And.. here is what it looks like after I put it all back together


I put 130 rounds through this gun today and it performed like a true champion. The sights were accurate, the mechanics were completely smooth, and there were no issues. I have upgraded the gun since I took these pictures by adding a set of Hogue rubberized cobblestone grips. I will also be switching out the main spring, with a lighter one, so that the double action is lighter, requiring less pressure to activate.

Six months ago, I never really even considered buying some weapons. Now I have two, and I am in the market for a few more. The way I see it, if I prepare, and you don't, you lose. It is as simple as that.

As you may have come to understand from reading my post about T-Mobile, I do not like companies billing formats. Monthly service charges, taxes, fees, etc... all adding up to way more than you bargained for when you signed up. I would like to say, however, that there is one company that I love giving money to. That company is DirecTV. They are my satellite television service provider, and I love them. Since the day I signed up for DirecTV over 10 years ago, I have been 100% completely satisfied with everything they have ever done. I do pay quite a bit of money per month for my services, but in return I get a veritable shitload of awesome channels.

As part of their ever-expanding system, they have recently launched a few more satellites into orbit to enhance my viewing experience. Once the new satellites were in place, they began to beam down their streams in MPEG4 format, which has a smaller footprint than the old MPEG2 format. Better compression equals smaller signal, which in turns equals more shit fitting in the same pipe so to speak. So this is all a good thing. Once they flipped the switch on MPEG4, my hardware was not latest and greatest anymore, whereas it would not decode the MPEG4 stream, because it was invented well before the stream existed. Old technology. Once I realized that with newer hardware, I could not only get my local channels in HD through the dish as opposed to an ATSC over the air antenna, but that they also offered approximately 70 national HD channels, with another 30 or so coming in the next several months. Since I already pay for the HD service, all these new channels would come at no extra charge.

I had a few wiring changes that I needed to make prior to upgrading, because the new system also meant getting a new physical dish mounted to my roof, and if I was going to go through that upgrade, I may as well get everything all set exactly like I wanted to do the first time, but didn't. Also, I researched making the call to ask for the upgrade, to increase my chances of getting this done all for free. It seems as though almost every single person that calls ends up getting a different kind of deal for some reason. I had called a few months back to inquire, and they were trying to charge me $200 for the hardware. I turned the offer down. So, I had been tinkering with the idea of calling back, but I wanted to be well prepared.

So a few weeks back I am watching TV and the phone rings. It is DirecTV asking me if I would like to upgrade for free. What? Really?!? It is like they read my fucking mind. That's amazing! I emphatically say yes. They attempt to schedule for the following Monday. Wow, it was already Thursday, so that would only leave me a few days to get everything in order. I asked if they could move it to Wednesday, and they said no problem. They scheduled me for the install between 8am to 12:00pm. I checked the website after the call to confirm it got entered correctly, and it said 6am-8am. Well, ok, no problem, earlier the better I guess. Wednesday arrives, 12:00pm arrive, no installer. Hmmm. I call into DirecTV, and they immediately get the third party installer company on the phone to find out what's what. The guy says he is running behind, but he can be here between 1pm and 1:30pm. Ok, no worries, I am working from home anyway, while I wait for them to arrive. 1:30 rolls around and no installer, then 2:30pm... and he arrives. In fairness, he called at about 2:15pm and asked if it was still OK if he did the install today. Of course I say.

Ok, now, that's a lot of prep for the real meat of today's post, but I wanted to give DTV their props, they really are a top notch operation, and I highly recommend them.

Ok, so the guy starts working immediately. He installs the dish on the roof, which takes about 2 hours total, because he also, without prompting, installed a grounding mechanism and a nice drip loop, with separate connectors. A nice added touch that makes my system better all around. Anyway, so it is a relatively warm day, and I know he is hot and sweaty. I intend to offer him a drink when he comes in the house to install the receiver, but I forget to do so. After about 30 minutes of working in the house replacing wire ends and whatnot, he asks if I could possibly get him a drink of water. I say sure, no problem. Then I think about how I could probably enhance his drinking pleasure by offering him one of the many soft drinks I have. I go down the list... Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew, sparkling water, Pepsi, etc... I had about 7 different varieties at the time.

He thinks about it for a minute, then asks if he could have some of the tea he sees in the refrigerator. The tea was not in a can mind you, it was in a 1 gallon pitcher. This threw me for a loop. This man is a complete stranger. He does not know me from Jesus, yet he has opted to ask for a drink that I made myself. Who the hell knows what I might have done to it? To some extent, its an assumption on his part to guess it is tea. I ponder for a second, sort of mumbling to myself, then I warn him ahead of time that it is not normal tea, that it is a mandarin orange type of green tea, that I sweetened with Sweet N Low, and not sugar. He says it sounds excellent, and would like a glass if possible. Wow. Really?

I pour him a glass, and then I think, somehow, that it will make him feel better if I had one too. Not that he would fee weird for asking, but that if I am also drinking it, it must not have three week old jizz floating in it. In my head, that was the justification. So I setup two glasses rather than one. He drinks some of the tea, and says it is very good, and thanks me again.

So, what in the hell would possess a person, in this day and age... in this Post 9-11 era to go into a complete strangers home, and opt out of canned sealed 'safe' drinks in favor of a mystery tea that some guy 'made'? Is it possible that this guy is just really trusting? Is it possible that maybe he is a risk taker that gets off on sampling peculiar beverages in the homes he visits for installs, to see if he ever gets a hold of one that's way off? Was he just raised that way? What the fuck?

I should point out a few things that may or may not be a factor. One, this man was black. Two, this man was not an American. He may have full citizenship, but I believe him to be a Jamaican heritage. Three, this man was VERY courteous and friendly, and eager to answer any questions I may have had. Do these things factor into his decision making process? I am 100% guaranteed NOT A RACIST [references available upon request], so do not let what I am about to type force you to form any opinions of me, but my personal experience seems to indicate that perhaps black people enjoy non-carbonated beverages more so than carbonated ones. This is based on my real world experience, and nothing else. My sample for study may be too narrow to produce effective results, but my findings at least appear to be worthwhile. Secondly, I have been to Jamaica, and most (98%) of the people I experienced there were tremendously courteous and trusting, so perhaps this carries more weight than the color study. Still, it boggles me to no end that he would make this choice. I naturally assumed he would not want it, that is why I never offered it up in the first place.

Put yourself in his shoes, would you ask for and drink a home made beverage in the home of someone you have never met before, provided that sealed canned sodas were clearly available? I wouldn't. In fact, I typically would opt for sealed canned drinks even at the home of my best friends. But, maybe there is a lesson here. Maybe his life is just a little bit better than mine, because he implicitly trusts his fellow man, and he is not afraid to try things that other people typically wouldn't. Thus, I am going to make an effort to be more receptive to what the world offers. So cheers DirecTV installer guy, and thank you very much!

My apologies if I have blogged about this before, but it is fresh on my mind.

My beloved technology industry, the exact same one that spawned so many .com millionaires, put a desktop computer in practically every household in the country, revolutionized the entire world with the advent of the internet, and gave me the opportunities to have a fruitful career, is now starting to cause me grief to some extent, and I do not see the problem correcting itself. I am referring to the Blackberry. For those who have lived under a rock for the past few years, a Blackberry is a device which allows the user to send and receive email on a mobile device. Sounds great on the surface, but let me tell you how it has had a negative impact on my life, so we can then analyze what it all means.

My manager at work (and his manager, and his manager's manager, etc...) has this phrase that he uses quite a bit about being "available 24 hours a day, because I have this Blackberry". Wow, sounds great, instant access to my boss at a moment's notice. While this may be true to some extent, it can be quite counterproductive at the same time.

Here is what I find happens. I get to work at 7:00am. My manager comes in some time after 9:00am, or not at all. Hey, he has the blackberry, so no problem right? Wrong. Say I get to work at 7:00am and something important comes up at 8:00am. More than likely, my manager is either asleep, dealing with kids, driving, or any dealing with any other activity that prevents his full attention to company business. So I send him an email giving a description, my analysis, and a few different options for solutions. Let's assume the email is a half a page long. If a person is driving down the highway at 70mph, there is no way in hell that the recipient can possibly scroll through my email on their 2" screen and get a firm understanding of the email and provide the attention needed to truly deal with its contents.

So what I get is a vague reply, which most of the time is not helpful in any way shape or form. I will send an email chock full of questions and looking for guidance so I can adhere to company policy, and I get a response like "Ok". Then what happens is that the email gets shuffled to the back burner. Perhaps there is the intention to give it a closer look later, but this seldom happens. Once the manager gets through with whatever he is doing, and gets to the office, and gets situated, other things have popped up, and so my important business email never gets a second look.

I learned pretty quickly that this was happening so I have formed a workaround of sorts. Knowing that this will happen every single time I send an email, I have begun to craft my emails in a manipulative manner, for lack of a better term. Now, when I send an email, it is more for informational purposes only and usually leaves no alternatives other than denial. In other words, I find my self using phrases at the end of my emails along the lines of "If this is a problem let me know". This way I can essentially do whatever I want, because the onus has been placed on him to deny my request. Since I know damn good and well the email will basically get ignored, I never get a denial.

A fine example of this is Wednesday of this week. I had the DirecTV satellite installers scheduled to do some work between 6am and 8am, which then became 8am-12pm, which then became 1:30pm, and then finally 2:30pm. I emailed my manager 6 days prior to the Wednesday to let him know that I would be working from home, while waiting for the installer, and that I would be in the office after the work was complete. At the end of the email I used my phrasing "If this is a problem, just let me know." I got a read receipt on the email, so I know that he saw the email. Wednesday rolls around and I am working from home. Around lunch time, I get an IM from a co-worker stating that he was looking for me and wondering where I was. I told my co-worker that I emailed the manager last week, so he was aware that I would be out. A few minutes later I get an email from my manager asking if I was "out today?" I replied that I was working from home, that I had emailed him that information last week, and a brief list of the 2 or 3 projects I was working on. The email was only a couple of paragraphs. At this point, it was during the time that he is usually at lunch. A few minutes later I get a response from him... "OK, thx". The working from home mail was clearly not as important as "Hey, everything is broken, all systems are down, and the company is in complete turmoil", but in the past it has been.

So basically what it boils down to is that Blackberry, and other technologies that were invented to make the world a better place, have had a different impact. They seem to be dumbing down society. The convenience of being "available 24/7" apparently has a downside. Can you imagine if the person reading their email while driving down the interstate was your doctor? What if the lab analyst that has your results is on the other end, writing the "if this is a problem, let me know" emails, and that person is just making their own decisions because they know the doctor won't really be paying attention to your emails. What if it was your lawyer, and their assistant?

I don't where the world is headed based on these types of things. If you don't think there is a problem with the dumbing down of modern society, talk to a teenager that uses text messaging all day. It is like trying to talk to someone from another country. If you really want have peek into what life could be like if this process continues, check the Luke Wilson film "Idiocracy", from 2006. In the movie, the character wakes up 500 years in the future, to find that he is the smartest person in the world. It is a really bad movie. It is really stupid, but it does make you think a little bit about how this dumbing down could have long term effects.

Am I telling you to trash your Blackberry and other email or text messaging devices? YES, throw that fucker in the trash right now, and never use it again.

Really nothing interesting today. I just feel weird about not posting for a while, so this one will just suck.

A few quick updates on some recent posts:

1. I am now fully on prepaid cell phone service. It is great. No issues at all. Fuck T-Mobile and their fees. The process was painless. They converted my existing SIM card, so I didn't have to do anything.

2. I called again about my speeding ticket. My ticket was there, they said I could simply come in, give them $301 cash, and in 90 days, my ticket would just magically disappear. Quick and easy. Fuck it.

3. Yesterday's Van Halen concert was........ POSTPONED! Turns out Eddie Van Halen has some sort of health issues. The show is rescheduled for April 24th, or I have the option of getting a refund. Do I plan on going to the show on April 24th in liue of a refund? Fuck yeah! Do I think the April 24th show will occur as the band plans? Fuck no! I suspect the show will never happen. At that time, I will get my refund. I really want to see them even more now.

Ok, I'd like to talk about the weather for a minute. Why does it seem that the seasons have been shifted by a month or two, and no one really seems to have noticed? I live in Texas, which is known for its crazy weather patterns and sudden changes. When I was younger, it seemed that winter came and went between late November and late January. Now days, it seems without fail to snow at least once in March, often mid to late March, and on into April. Why is that? It seems that every year that goes by brings a milder "winter", then a few late snows extending into April. These rarities used to be the exception, but now they are the norm. Let's face it, Winter now starts in January and lasts until the end of March. Am I the only one who notices this?

This past weekend on Saturday afternoon it was almost 80 degrees. A nice please day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, the trees and grass were happily coming out of what they perceive to be "winter" mode. Monday night, it snowed 4 inches at my house. Today, all the snow is gone, and it reached 60 degrees. What the hell?

Maybe I should do some meteorological study to find out if this is something that has slowly progressed over time, or if perhaps I am just not examining a large enough section of time. I guess there is no real cause for concern, what is the worst that can happen? Right?